Balodis bitching

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

"What the hell?!" swore the sound engineer, loud enough for bystanders to hear, silent enough not to be heard on the record. On producers unspoken question, she had only to raise one of her perfect eyebrows, he retorted: "It's the third mike, that gave out on me, all on him and the recording has not been started."

The almost helpless engineer referred to Magnus Peterson, who sat in his guests chair all while maintaining his oblivious posture.

"I, sort of, warned you guys..." was the only reaction the host was rewarded with as he watched helplessly as stage technician rushed to remove the dead microphone.

It was obvious that the host will start sweating uncontrollably any minute now.

All while watching this, Monica, the producer with the perfect eyebrows, and eyebrows were not the only perfect part of her body, turned to the sound engineer and sad in her most sultry voice.

"Gunnar, figure it out please!", the please was said in way that any half-straight man would sell his soul, if asked.

"If we make this happen, there will be no worries about ratings for while. This is the first time he agreed to any sort of interview. We'll be the first to pull it off, and we'll stay first for a while."

"... we could always try the parabolic mikes ..." muttered Gunnar, trying no to choke on his saliva, barely averting eyes from Monica's torso, perfect torso.

"I knew you'll come up with something, you're the best!"

Meanwhile Magnus Peterson mused by himself - "How many more of the equipment will be destroyed, before they resolve to some other sound recording method?"

Upon seeing a parabolic microphone being trained towards him, Magnus turned to Valentine, hist host and said in almost cheerful "So, shall we start then?" His tone suggested that Magnus has had his own silent 'I told you so' moment and had rather enjoyed it. That's just how some wizards are.

A short while later the light, that signalised that the airing has commenced, came on.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to our show! Todays guest is Magnus Peterson, the only wizard you can find in yellow pages. Good morning, Magnus! Is it okay id I refer to you by first name?"

“Good morning! And yes - it is ok, as you say. Although it is custom between wizards to prepend ‘wizard’ and we use only the last name."

“So, you’re not the only one?"

“Why, no! Of course I am not the only, just I am not the most shy one."

“And why is that?"

“Well … one has to earn his living some way!"

“If you are a wizard, why don’t you turn a pile of junk in gold whenever you need?"

“As funny as it may seem, it is not that simple - basic laws of nature and physics still apply."

“So you can’t do it?” Magnus felt that Valentine has gotten over his initial uneasiness.

“I certainly can!"

“Can you do right here?” it looked like Valentine started to gain momentum

“I probably could do it, but I really do not want to upset your producer, you know, the one with a rich and sultry voice ..."

“And how could you do that?"

“There would be a massive energy build-up that could prove quite harmful to any electric apparatus in here."

The explanation left Valentine a bit puzzled, albeit for a moment.

“So, you’re saying that any electric malfunction is a sign of some kind of supernatural activity?!"

Then Magnus turned to one of the cameras directly “Remember, what I just said - electronics start to misbehave, streetlights start to flicker - look for cover!"

Then hands, suddenly, stretched sideways, with a mischievous smile on his lips, Magnus said his goodby “It was fun being here!” Upon finishing the sentence the hands came together with a thunderous clap. All the stage lights, trained on Magnus, gave out in spectacular rain of sparks., allowing Magnus leave almost unnoticed.

“That was perfect!” muttered Monica, not fully aware of her nipples pressing against the black, slim t-shirt she so loved to wear.

“Mhmm…” was the only sound Gunnars mustered with his throat bone dry and the stiff gaze still tied to Monicas torso.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

To start with - a while ago some I saw a YouTube video with Sir Ken Robinson "Do schools kill creativity?" And it left me thinking, especially this story. About a lot of things. One thing was clear to me - I want my kids to preserve their creativity as long as possible.

To start from the beginning let's look at The Incredible Hulk released in 2008, five years after previous Hulk movie. Ok - the plot is a bit different, it starts approximately where the the first movie ended, but ... the flashbacks from Banners past are not consistent. Hmmm... strange... Then at the end a character enters the plot and I get an idea which hangs in the air for a while.

Then there is Iron Man in which the same character reappears - still uncredited, still at the end of movie ( some even may miss it ), but in Iron Man 2 nobody can miss it.

So the question is who hasn't got any clue yet? At least those that hav read some comics involving the characters named above should have an idea.

taken from imdb.com

So that character is Nick Fury - the boss of SHIELD. Appearance of Nick Fury in all those movies mentioned above lets anyone suspect that they even may appear in a single movie. Anyone who has the habit of watching the movie trailers knows that a movie Captain America is underway - yet another comic heroe in a movie. In a movie which is called "Captain America: The First Avenger" - so more and more Avengers will come alive in movies, which is great, unless ...

... and now the bitching part ... the movie people shape the main characters as they seem fit, taking only names from the comics. In Thor Loki, the god of mischief, is almost the good guy - after Thor saw his lips shut, both in norse mythology and in comics as well. Anyone would turn bad after something like that. And in comics Thor shared a body with a mortal and Mjolnir was disguised a stick. And bridge from Asgard to other world is destroyed at the end on movie. By what means will Thor be involved with Earth now?

So let's hope all the Avenger theme won't end up fuck'ed beyond recognition, because as one can see there will some movies around Avengers

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Yes, I'm using a HTC Desire HD and today the new Android version came out specially for this phone ( well, no only this one, there was another HTC model mentioned ). While being a little nervous I started the update process and after some 20 minutes it was done. Happily no data was lost during the update ( not hat I'm aware of ).

The first thing I noticed was some sound coming for the weather widget that's sitting on my home screen - okay, it can be switched off, which I did. Did't want to wake/startle someone just by unlocking the phone.

Next little thing - the apps button on the left has changed, which is nothing compared what happens when that button is pressed. Now one can access whole bunch of apps, most frequently used apps or downloaded apps.Another thing someone would like is the feature that let's switch between list or grid view of apps.

Next thing that made me even more happy with this update is upgraded notifications area, which now has 2 tabs - notifications and quick settings. The later lets turn off/on mobile network, WiFi, bluetooth, GPS, WiFi hotspot or all settings.

Another good thing is that now while on home screen the Menu button brings up personalisation menu thru which even adding new ringtones is possible ( from HTC Hub or from music folder).

Talking about personalisation - now there is an option of add a shortcut to a number of things which could be very frequently used, such as Dropbox folder, Settings, Bookmarks, Direct message or Inbox.

The lasts thing I'm listing here is linking of contacts - now you can even add twitter account to contacts in your phonebook ( hmm ... simply calling someone is so not today ?! )

Now the bitching part - although there are API's for taking screenshots without rooting ( yes - I hate messing with things that are working fine ) the phone, there is no built-in app/way to do it. All I ( along with other users ) have to wait for someone to create an app for taking screenshots. So this bitching part should explain why there are no pictures in this post.

Recently most popular linux distro named Ubuntu had a new release: 11.04 aka Natty Narwhal. This release is next step towards touch based systems. The default Gnome is getting replaced by Unity windows manager, which is great unless... ( here comes the bitching part ) your computer has a graphics card that is not so new ATI/AMD.

This is my blog where I'll try to write in english and mostly about things that are pissing me off. So that's why this blog is called 'Balodis bitching' . About my self: I'm ~ 30 years old latvian, with 9 years experience in IT field, mostly in web programming; I'm trying to be a good dad to my daughter; I'm a member of a student fraternity called Selonija; there was a time I was into computer gaming ( actually I'm still a bit ). This is not all, but I'm having some trouble deciding what else should I disclose in this article - se feel free to ask.